Judgment Night in Canada (Updated with hard realities!)
Don Cherry, who at age eighty-five was fired from his longtime assignment as the star of “Coach’s Corner” during Hockey Night In Canada broadcasts, due to his acerbic remarks questioning the patriotism of some immigrants, says he will not pass judgment on his friend and co-host, Ron MacLean, who “apologized” under employer pressure the next day, in a statement that was essentially a self-absolution by accusation. In short, MacLean tied Cherry up in a gunny sack and tossed him into the lake. Because that’s what people do to their friends in this age of irrational self-interest and progressive intimidation. That, in fact, is what people are supposed to do. For that’s how Maoism — which the daddy of today’s PM, Pierre Trudeau, so deeply admired — maintains control of the population.
You can only survive in this climate, particularly in a public setting, if you are prepared to say “two plus two equals five” on Marxist cue — and then say two plus two equals six tomorrow, nine the next day, and seven on another day, according to the Tribunal’s whims of the moment.
Cherry, an old man with a strong streak of iconoclasm, decided he would not accommodate the Maoists. MacLean begged for his life, and offered up his career benefactor and thirty-year friend as a human sacrifice to save himself. He is a worm in a land that values worms, thrives on worms. Worms are no threat to the Marxist status quo, the progressive academic orthodoxy, the communist-lurching political class. Worms are useful, because they live for survival, and fear everything. They till the soil of never-ending revolution, they make no fuss about following orders, and when necessary, they eat the corpses of those obsolete men who refused to passively accept yesterday’s four as today’s five, nine, or seven.
UPDATE:
Over the past forty-eight hours, the Canadian media — led by the government-owned CBC (Cherry’s employer on Hockey Night in Canada for decades) and their even more overtly leftist partner in propaganda, Yahoo Canada — has been desperately trying to drum up a few people from the worlds of sports, the military, and politics willing to pile on in this Orwellian two minutes hate directed at an eighty-five-year-old sports commentator. Among the cherry-picked criticism, however, a few normal humans have been included to provide the totalitarian mouthpiece version of “balance.” Two comments, both from Montreal Canadiens who, like most of the league’s current players, grew up watching Cherry every week on television, stand out as particularly telling, in the sense of representing a frightening sign of the times.
First, from Max Domi, whose tough guy father Tie was a Cherry favorite on “Coach’s Corner” during his playing career with the Toronto Maple Leafs:
“I love Don Cherry. I always have, always will,” Domi said on Tuesday after the Habs’ morning skate. “He’s a big reason why most of us play hockey. We grew up looking up to a guy like that, watching ‘Coach’s Corner’ and stuff. It’s unfortunate what happened, it’s sad. He’s a big part of hockey. That’s all really we can say unfortunately nowadays.”
Second, from Nick Cousins:
“It’s just going to be completely different. You grow up watching ‘Hockey Night in Canada,’ especially being from Canada, every Saturday night he’s on there and he’s always got a pretty strong opinion on things. Sometimes he crosses the line. Obviously, he crossed the line there a couple nights ago. That’s what happens nowadays. So it’s tough to see.”
That’s all really we can say unfortunately nowadays.
That’s what happens nowadays.
As I said at the conclusion of my first post on this topic, it is not Cherry who has changed. It is Canada that has changed — Canada along with the rest of the “civilized” world here at the edge of the abyss.
That’s all we can say nowadays. “That” — namely the leftist labeling, silencing, and public ostracism of a man who dares to express an opinion not pre-approved by the progressive powers that be — is what happens nowadays.
And we are all supposed to be sanguine about this change. Or at least to keep our mouths shut and live with it, lest we end up on the ash heap of history like old Don Cherry. It’s so nice that we’re much more tolerant nowadays, isn’t it?